Investing in people is often one of the most valuable investments a business can make, but how? Gina Plytas, founder of Pearls of Wisdom Consulting, shares how important retaining exceptional talent is, and often the key to achieving this lies in investing in their personal growth and well-being. With an impressive 25-year corporate career in Talent Development, Knowledge, and Learning within the financial services sector, she made a bold decision to follow her passion and become a Mindset and Peak-Performance Coach. Emphasizing the boundless opportunities available in the tech industry today, driven by the high demand for specialized skills - it’s important and often transformational for professionals to build new mindsets in the ever-evolving world of technology.

There are a lot of challenges in the tech industry, and often there are hurdles that don't allow for forward movement as quickly as one might like. But the industry also provides significant opportunity for growth. With a love for interactions, people and storytelling - Ashley Ladd is passionate about the work she does, believing that passion can help lead to success. As the Director of Diversity, Inclusion & Social Impact at Snyk, a developer security platform empowering organizations to develop fast and stay secure - Ashley leads the company's global Diversity, Inclusion & Social Impact strategy focused on building innovative programs, and partnering with leaders across the organization to drive impactful business outcomes. Often there is an illusion that professionals in her area, and others, know everything - but that's something to be demystified. How?

There’s usually more than one way to solve a problem, but which one is the right one? Sometimes you have to fail to find out. Cody Baker, a Senior Incident Responder at AIG, interest in technology began as a kid playing video games. But before he began a career in cybersecurity he joined the Army, once holding the responsibility of standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. After serving, he transitioned to various roles in information technology and security, including working with the FBI. Always a team player with a strong growth and inventive mindset - Baker approaches his work with curiosity and creativity using a hacker mindset to identify vulnerabilities, develop effective solutions and invent new technologies.

The number of women in cybersecurity over the last two decades has grown, but there was a time when being a female in cyber in the UK meant you were the only one in the room. For Niamh Muldoon, the Chief Information Security Officer at Fenergo, it was a reality at the beginning of her career. Starting in Fashion Design but finding a passion for cybersecurity Muldoon took the CISSP and never looked back. While her career spans across multiple industries including finance, SaaS and cloud - working with many globally recognised brands.Today she is responsible for the Enterprise Information Security program at Fenergo including defining, driving, and delivering their Security First Operational Excellence strategy. A strong believer in cultivating a team culture that embraces the uniqueness of each individual, she shares the superpowers that female leaders. Seeing herself as an underdog helps her keep an edge that drives her growth, passion and success. An award-winning Information security thought leader and Guinness World Record holder for Cybersecurity Awareness, she is passionate about security and privacy and the opportunity that the global scale of cybersecurity presents.

How does one go from being an Anonymous and LulzSec hacker to Director of Research at Alacrinet, where he works with clients to assist them in maturing their security program and strengthening their security posture? Hector Monsegur, known by the pseudonym Sabu in his hacktivist days in the early 2000's, infiltrated or compromised the systems of governments around the world before eventually being caught by the FBI. More specifically Special Agent Chris Tarbell. Today, he hosts a podcast called Hacker and the Fed with Tarbell. And at Alacrinet, Monsegur uses his unique expertise to provide clients with white glove protection - helping them understand not only the issues they are facing based on the gaps they have, but what they could be doing to mature their security program.

Today there is a real need for people to feel trust, affinity and connection to their colleagues. But how can technology help make that happen - especially in a world in which workforces are highly distributed? Mariel Davis, Cofounder of Spokn, is a self-proclaimed challenge junkie - always thinking differently in solving them. It's what lead her to the Middle East in college to study Arabic, and to Y Combinator to accelerate the growth and evolution of Spokn. Today, it's a platform that while powered by technology, it provides employees with tools to connect each other and ultimately build trust.

Traditionally, people have rarely gone to school for cybersecurity. Yet it's an industry that impacts every facet of the world, and its importance is growing by the minute. Within it, you can "fight the bad guys and make the world a better place in some way," says Maggie Macalpine. MacAlpine, a Cyber Engagement Lead at the Center for Threat-Informed Defense at MITRE Engenuity, was an english major who has found a passion for bridging knowledge gaps across cybersecurity. In an industry where jargon itself can cause confusion and miscommunication, she has found a niche in translating engineering-speak to english - her self-described superpower. Beginning her career at a startup focusing on election security at a time when there wasn’t such widespread concern as to whether or not security was an issue. Now, at the Center for Threat-Informed Defense where the goal is to advance the state of the art state of practicing threat informed defense, a philosophical approach to cybersecurity that focuses on what an adversary is doing rather than traditional defensive compliances and "checking the boxes" within traditional cybersecurity. MacAlpine shares how the relative newness of cybersecurity, and the innovation needed to protect information using online machines is a completely new terrain.

Beginning his career in the US Navy as a Information Systems Technician, Chris Haller transferred to the Navy's Cyber Defense Operations Command where he absolutely fell in love with cybersecurity. Currently the Director of Professional Services at Centripetal, he recently became only the 329th security professional to pass the GSC, the most prestigious credential in IT security. Driven by curiosity and a desire to help protect businesses against adversaries, Haller employs a hacker mindset to creatively execute vulnerability assessments and awareness trainings for enterprises, leveraging prior experience and intelligence to help protect their networks and increase their cybersecurity posture.

What does Information Technology and Photojournalism have in common? Christy Prosser. An experienced technologist, she has spent more than 30 years in the education industry holding various roles across IT in schools From Technology Coordinator, to Executive Director and Chief Technology Officer - and a lot in between. As a life-long learner in technology with a sense for adventure she has become a a recognized photographer capturing even famous people and events around the world from The Royal Family to The Iditarod. How can curiosity drive success and growth in technology and life? Listen to this episode of Big Phish: Adventures in Tech.